Thank you for contacting us about the BBC News Website article entitled 'Hindu pilgrims killed in militant attack in Kashmir'

I understand you are unhappy the word 'militant' was used and not terrorist.

While the BBC has no specific rule against the use of the word terrorist, we feel words that specifically describe the perpetrators actions, in this case we feel the word militant accurately portrays the incident.

The BBC has a responsibility to remain objective in our reporting allowing our audience to make up their own assessments about any particular incident. I do appreciate you may continue to feel differently and please be assured it is never our intention to offend any of our readership.

The key point is that the BBC as an organisation has no view or position itself on anything we may report upon - our aim is to identify all significant views, and to test them rigorously and fairly on behalf of our audiences.

We do appreciate your feedback on this issue and as such I have sent your complaint directly to senior management as well as the BBC News Online team via our Audience Feedback Report. This report is among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and can help inform decisions about future reporting.

I pointed this out and this is the response I got (see below). Clearly this is unacceptable, if these attacks had been in the UK, they would be described as terror attacks. Deliberate targeting of civilians should always be defined as a terror attack. I appreciate that we have a free press but there are certain standards that need to be met and the BBC has fallen a long way short of them in these instances and others and it doesn't help the reputation of the UK around the world.

Thanks

"Reference CAS-4475340-HMLXB2

Thank you for contacting us about the BBC News Website article entitled 'Hindu pilgrims killed in militant attack in Kashmir'

I understand you are unhappy the word 'militant' was used and not terrorist.

While the BBC has no specific rule against the use of the word terrorist, we feel words that specifically describe the perpetrators actions, in this case we feel the word militant accurately portrays the incident.

The BBC has a responsibility to remain objective in our reporting allowing our audience to make up their own assessments about any particular incident. I do appreciate you may continue to feel differently and please be assured it is never our intention to offend any of our readership.

The key point is that the BBC as an organisation has no view or position itself on anything we may report upon - our aim is to identify all significant views, and to test them rigorously and fairly on behalf of our audiences.

We do appreciate your feedback on this issue and as such I have sent your complaint directly to senior management as well as the BBC News Online team via our Audience Feedback Report. This report is among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and can help inform decisions about future reporting.

BBC came up with an article on partition and criticizes India as usual...
Pakistan has a population of about 200 million - mostly Muslims. India has almost 1,300 million citizens and about one in seven follow Islam. There are almost as many Indian Muslims as Pakistani Muslims.

One projection suggests that by 2050, India will overtake Indonesia to become the country with the world's biggest Muslim population. But Muslims are under-represented in India's parliament and many other areas of public life.

Of course, there is no mention of problems faced by minorities in Pakistan, which apparently is the shining beacon of secularism, egalitarianism & democracy.

But they are too eager to impose false equivalency on both nation's support for militancy. You know Osama Bin Laden was found hiding in India, so we deserve this.

India also accuses Pakistan of supporting militant organisations which have carried out terrorist-style attacks in Indian cities. Pakistan says India colludes with breakaway movements in areas such as Balochistan.

And what the hell are 'terrorist-style attacks' ? It seems BBC has coined a new term for terrorist attacks on India.